AN IMPROVED BARBER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 214, 8 September 1881, Page 4

AN IMPROVED BARBER

New York Times. In the town of Altoona, Perm, there has appeared a new and improved type of barber. This desideratum breathes through his ears. There appears to be a small passage in each ear, passing on one side of the tympanum, and connecting the throat with the outside air. Through this passage the new barber can breathe while his hearing does not seem to be any less acute than that of the usual sort of barber. He is said to be very proud of the peculiarity which makes him to differ from other barbers, and is in the habit of permitting his customers to place a plaster over his mouth, and a monkey wrench on his nose, in order to prove that he can "breathe with both nose and mouth closed. Of course he cannot talk through his ears, for if he could he ■would be utterly useless. He cannot even make the slightest sound by way of his ears, and when his mouth and nose are closed he is as silent as the grave. This is the kind of barber for ■which we have vainly longed. That such a barber should finally have appeared may seem to many people only a beautiful dream, bat it is, nevertheless, a splendid reality. He has been developed by nature in order to meet a great want. How much more beautiful does this world seem since the advent of the Altoona barber ! He brings with him the hope of the emancipation of mankind from tonsorial conversation, the near and total disappearance of tonic. Hail ! silent, voiceless shaver ! Hail !